Built for time,
not trends.
Walnut, oil, leather, blued steel, blackened nickel. Made to order.
Custom electric guitars built by Preston and Jim Wimberly from real materials: wood, metal, leather, and wire. Instruments that welcome age instead of hiding from it. In a world of artificial wear and disposable objects, Wimberly guitars are made to gather their own marks.
Built in Texas. Built in small numbers.
Wimberly Guitars is a father-and-son workshop building made-to-order electric guitars from walnut, hand-tooled leather, blued steel, blackened nickel, and raw brass. The work is slow, material-first, and made for players who want an instrument that will gather its own history.
Two models. One shop. The Jack is a single-pickup guitar with a direct signal path. The Lucio carries three pickups and a full leather sunburst pickguard. Both are built one at a time and signed with the W.
Built like an old rifle.
When we are working on a Wimberly guitar, the object we keep on the bench is not another guitar. It is a 19th-century lever-action rifle. Walnut stock, oiled, no varnish. Case-hardened receiver. Blued barrel, deep and protective. Hand-fitted, no plastic, made to be passed down.
We are not building a rifle. But we are building to the same standard. Jim's father, Jack Wimberly, worked his whole career at Hughes Tool in Houston. That kind of Texas work, steel, oil, patience, and a thing made to last, is part of the inheritance here.
When in doubt about a material, a finish, or a layout, we ask one question: would this look right on an old rifle?
Two silhouettes. One workshop.
The catalog is two made-to-order guitars from a father-and-son shop. Same wood, same oil, same leather, same gunsmith-style metal finish. Different silhouettes, different signal paths, different jobs. One pickup or three. Cut or color. Both walnut. Both leather. Both signed with the W.
Wood, leather, blued steel, blackened nickel.
Three material families carry the entire guitar. Each one is chosen for the same reason: it changes honestly under the hand. No fake wear. No sprayed-on age. Just real surfaces built to take use.
Wood
Solid walnut bodies, hand-rubbed in Tru-Oil. No figured tops, no dyes, no exotic burls. The wood is what it is. Maple headstocks, also Tru-Oil finished, chosen to take the small burned W.
Leather
8 oz veg-tanned leather pickguards, cut and burnished by hand, engraved in the shop. The sunburst is dyed by hand, dark at the edges fading to amber-gold at the center, the same family as a tobacco-burst rifle stock.
Metal
Steel is blued, blackened, or fire-colored depending on the part, color built into the surface, not painted on top. Nickel is JAX-blackened, lightly carded, and sealed. Brass is left raw. Each piece is sealed with oil or wax and worked almost dry.
The leather is signed by its pattern.
8 oz veg-tanned leather, cut to the silhouette by hand, edges burnished, sunburst dyed from amber to walnut. Patterns are engraved into the leather in the shop, drawn for this guitar, on this pickguard, on this body.
The hardware is signed by the hand. The wood is signed by the grain. The W is for the headstock.
The instruments that stayed with me were the ones made from real materials, by someone who cared, built to be played for a long time. They got better the more life they saw. Preston Wimberly
Common ground.
- What do you build?
- Made-to-order custom electric guitars built in Texas from wood, leather, metal, and wire. The current line is The Jack ($3,800) and The Lucio ($4,500).
- How long does a build take?
- New builds are currently waitlisted. Once a build slot opens, the build takes 12–16 weeks from deposit to delivery.
- Do you artificially relic guitars?
- No. The materials are chosen to age honestly through use. The marks should come from the player, not the shop pretending time has passed.
- What pickups do you use?
- Seymour Duncan Antiquity series, Telecaster bridge on The Jack, Strat set on The Lucio. Gunstreet 50s hand-soldered wiring harness on both.
One guitar at a time.
New Wimberly builds are currently waitlisted. Add your name below and Preston will write back when the next build slot opens.